So I will be a first year teacher in a first grade classroom this year with a really small class of only 10 firsties (and 15 Kindergartener's in the afternoon mixed in) and they do what the previous teacher called "jobs" while she taught guided reading.

From what I understand jobs work similarly to centers but students all do all the tasks each day in the same order and the jobs often stay the same for weeks at a time.

Do any of you do this? Can you give me pros and cons to centers vs. jobs or your thoughts on this?

I'm student teaching in a first grade and the teacher calls her literacy work "centers". Each table group rotates through the whole set weekly. The format(?) resembles Daily 5, but only one each day. (Fabulous phonics=word work, write on=work on writing<she also has a separate writing workshop>, listening, poetry, and I can't remember the 5th). During this time she calls groups for guided reading, and when they finish the do self-selected reading.
It seems like the term 'center' makes it sound more fun to the students.
Hope that helps.

Last edited by BlueLupine; 10-31-2012 at 05:46 PM..
Reason: More info on specific centers